Andrea’s A-List Update – March Shipment

I promised everyone an update to my post about Andrea’s A-List Wine Club that we signed up for last month. I was really busy so it took me a while to try her recipe with her wine. Here is the first wine, Goldeneye Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley 2003:

Here is how her miso crusted ahi tuna with sautéed mushrooms recipe came out. Sorry for the lousy plating, I was have a really bad day. I even forgot to garnish with some fresh thyme (I decided to add that to her recipe, but then forgot). Enough excuses, here it is:

The nose of the wine was incredible with lots of raspberry jam and vanilla. The finish was quite bitter and I felt the tannins were unbalanced. My opinion is contrary to Andrea’s opinion that the wine has “a satin texture.” Overall, I was not that impressed for a wine that she was raving about.

The other wine in our March shipment was a bottle of Brookwalter Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley 2003. This wine was HUGE with lots of red and black cherry. I also picked up some wonderful dusty earthiness and tobacco notes. This was in line with Andrea’s notes (whew, maybe my palate is still decent) however she also picked up a couple of others: cassis and leather. She described the finish as having “charred flavor to the tannins that grab your tongue at the end.” I called it hurtful, bitter, and astringent. I’m not sure if age will help this as I don’t think it’s really balanced, but who am I to say. We did decant it but I’m not sure if it helped. Perhaps it would have been worse had we not? I started to get worried as I saw a theme developing – wonderful nose, bitter finish.

Things get better for April’s shipment as I’ll outline in my next post.

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eGoh (Eric Goh) - Technology entrepreneur, product management professional, fountain of esoteric knowledge. Currently located in Austin, TX but New York, Boston, and San Francisco will always have a place in his heart.